Today the Cherry Creek School District is huge, serving tens of thousands of students, sprawling over 110 square miles from County Line to Alameda. But it all began in a single room.

A small, lonesome schoolhouse on a dusty plain by Parker Road. The Cherry Creek School has had quite a journey. At first, it educated generations of grade schoolers. Now, it’s a relic remaining in the center of campus.

“It’s easy to just be wrapped up in our current reality, but [we should] also understand the kind of the people who came before us and what their reality was like,” Principal Ryan Silva said. “I think it’s just good to know what your roots are.”

But with a complete redesign and rebuild of the Creek campus beginning next year, plans for the schoolhouse’s fate aren’t yet certain. What is the story of the historic building and what does the future have in store?

Beginnings

Historical records are spotty for the 1870s. That’s why there’s no confirmed date the Cherry Creek School was established, but we know it was in use by 1874. It’s the oldest of several small plains schools that once served ranching communities south of Denver, like Curtis School (now preserved as an arts center, near the corner of Orchard and University in Greenwood Village) and Melvin School (which is preserved on the campus of Smoky Hill High School).

The school also served as a community center for Sunday school, dances, potlucks, and public meetings, according to former CCSD deputy superintendent Donald Goe. It became more than a simple one-room schoolhouse. It was a social, communal hub for arts and learning.

Daily Life

In a Jan. 1947 profile of class at the School, the Rocky Mountain News highlighted the lone teacher, Rebecca Armstrong, and her efforts to educate a classroom full of students from grades 1-8.

The student population varied year to year at the Cherry Creek School. Some years, there were as many as 30. In 1898, there were only four. A single teacher was employed to teach children of all ages and levels.

Class would look completely foreign to today’s pupils. Unlike our current elementary schools, there were no classes or separations. Armstrong would juggle arithmetic and reading lessons for younger kids while older students worked independently; then they would switch.

At such a small plains school, supplies were never plentiful. For most lessons, students shared textbooks provided by the county library. Yet they made do.

“I have a very co-operative school board,” Armstrong told the Rocky Mountain News. “The things this school lacks is not their fault.”

Modern comforts were nowhere to be seen. Heat came from a coal-burning stove at the center of the room. There was no way to cool the room on hot days. Water came from a well and a pump outside, and children washed their hands in a simple basin.

Yet despite daily challenges of rural life, children and teachers of the community operated the school until it closed in 1951.

Abandonment

In 1950, residents south of Denver voted to consolidate the area’s seven rural districts into a single Cherry Creek School District No. 5. The new district began replacing the old single-room schoolhouses with larger modern buildings. Cherry Creek School, the oldest in the area, was rendered obsolete.

Having served its time as a school, the little building was vacated in 1951, and on Jun. 22, 1953, it was sold to local farmer Bels Lyttle for $185 ($2,176 in 2025). Originally, Lyttle planned to refurbish and remodel the building to serve as a home for his newlywed daughter and her husband, Leila and Ray Peaslee.

Yet it never fulfilled its purpose as a home. The Peaslees were transferred for work and Lyttle instead converted the schoolhouse into a simple shed, alone on a prairie near Parker, storing equipment and supplies.

For 16 years it stood in its place, awaiting rediscovery by a Creek teacher leading a group of students and a mission.

Repair

In 1969, through a unit on local history, social studies teacher and Key Club advisor Ed Berger inspired a crowd of Creek students, who worked together with one goal: to find and save the Cherry Creek School. From historical photographs they learned what the building looked like, and through resources and interviews from the Key Club Historical Committee, they learned the general area where it might have ended up.

On their own time, in their own cars, after school, Key Club students ventured out to Parker on multiple excursions to try and find the little school. Eventually they stumbled upon it: a signature white-and-green building with a distinct circular vent above the door.

They persuaded Lyttle to sell it to the district for $850. Then they lifted it off its foundation and put it on a truck. Once it was back on Creek campus, they did fundraising and got additional funding from the district to refurbish it.

“Key Club is built on the idea of leadership through service, and the schoolhouse project is a perfect example of that,” current Key Club advisor and science teacher Ember Canty said. “Students in the 1970s saw a need, took initiative, and worked hard to preserve something meaningful for the community.”

According to Goe, the Cherry Creek Woman’s Club collected artifacts, books, pictures, and memorabilia to display inside the schoolhouse.

“So much of what we do that’s really good at our school is student initiated and student driven, and that’s an example of it,” Silva said. “Also, I think it shows that students care about things like this. That’s part of our identity and our history.”

Still in the center of the campus, the schoolhouse offers a glimpse into a past life of Colorado kids: old books they read, pick-up sticks they played, an antique globe from which they learned geography, the tin cups they drank from, the coal bin they used to refill the stove, and a lonely corner desk where disruptive students might sit for punishment..

But what’s next on the schoolhouse’s long, roundabout journey from that dusty plain?

The Future

The Cherry Creek School will be relocated and repaired as a feature on Creek’s future campus. But where exactly will it end up? And will it keep its place on the state register of historic buildings?

“My understanding is that when you move a historical building, it no longer will be a historical building,” Silva said. “It’ll still have significance to us as a historical building, but it won’t have the official designation.”

According to History Colorado’s State Registry of Historic Properties, buildings can be altered and moved, but they may be at risk for losing their title on the list. Also, to apply for some grants for restoration money, the district would have to agree to certain conditions meant to preserve historical integrity, and it’s not clear if CCSD can.

Canty is enthusiastic to find ways Key Club could help with the relocation – 60 years after her predecessor, Berger, did the same.

“If the schoolhouse is moved…as part of the campus rebuild, we’d be eager to explore ways our members could support that process, whether through awareness, volunteer efforts, or helping preserve its stories,” she said.

Even as Silva looks ahead to the campus rebuild, he also wants to educate more students on the schoolhouse right now while he has the chance.

“I’ve been the principal for a long time, but really, there are so many people that came before me and that will come after me,” he said. “I get to make sure that I give students opportunities to shape what Cherry Creek is.”

History teacher Eric Gallagher is working with Activities Director Kelly Prevost to create an advisory program that would teach students the historical foundations of Creek, featuring a field trip inside the schoolhouse.

“It is important to know about local history to understand why the present day is the way it is,” Gallagher said. “It’s important to understand past celebrations and failures to better prepare for the future.”

Through all the twists and turns in the Cherry Creek School’s past, and whatever the future holds in store for it, Silva believes it’s a perfect reminder for what he works towards each day.

“One thing that probably has been consistent from the time the Cherry Creek School District was born was the desire for excellence,” he said. “By having one of the original schoolhouses on our campus, it’s just a reminder [that] things change, but I think standards and a desire to do things that are student focused and give students as many opportunities as possible, shouldn’t change.”